Large nuisance tire pile could be ready to roll away

The state is one step closer to removing the last large stockpile of old tires from the state. The state Environmental Protection Commission will take up a contract to remove the tires from the Bee Rite Tire Disposal sites in Rhodes and State Center at its meeting next week. Brian Tormey of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says they’ve been working for the last seven years to roll away the old tires statewide. He says, since 1997, they’ve cleaned up about 10-million tires from 80 different sites. Tormey says the Bee Rite stockpile is the last of its size. He says they estimate that there’s about 700-thousand waste tires in Roads and about five-thousand in State Center. Tormey says it’ll cost over 600-thousand dollars to clean up the tires. He says they get five percentage of the road-use tax money generated by car licensing for the waste tire management program. Tormey says they’ll try to recover the cost of the cleanup from the company. He says there was a one-point-five million dollar penalty against the company as a part of a consent order, and the state will try to recover the cost of the cleanup after the cleanup has been completed. If approved, cleanup will begin in December and probably finish in May 2005.